Comeback Comes Up Just Short as Men's Lacrosse Falls 9-8 at Rollins

WINTER PARK, FL - The Rollins men’s lacrosse team notched another first on Friday afternoon as they won their second-straight contest, a feat never before done in program history, with a 9-8 victory over Pfeiffer University. Rollins advances to 2-2 overall, and sits at .500 for the first time in the program’s short stint, while the Falcons drop to 1-4 on the season.

Sophomore Austin Ricci led the Tars with a hat trick and assist on the afternoon, matching a career high in goals in a game. Charlie Shelly and Chuck Magid placed two balls apiece in cage, with Matthew Lunnen and Eric Schmit tallying one apiece as the Tars picked up their second win this week over an in-region opponent.

Charles Cook and Justin Wright threaded the needle with ease as each registered two assists on the day, while Andrew Cohen and Lunnen rounded out the assists with one apiece as the Tars found help on seven of their nine goals.

Goalies Zach Cole and Doug O’Brien split time between the pipes, with Cole seeing 31:13 minutes in cage, and O’Brien completing the game with 28:47 minutes on the field. Cole allowed only one goal while making seven saves, while O’Brien tallied seven saves of his own, and allowed seven goals.

Kory Lutes led the charge for the Falcons, notching four goals on the afternoon to lead the game. Justin Rose and Chad Olsen tallied two apiece, with Rose adding two assists, and John Metz registering an assist of his own.

Pfeiffer placed two goalies between the pipes, with Matt McShea starting the contest, allowing seven goals and grabbing five saves.Jimmy Dyches fared better in cage, allowing only two goals and collecting six saves.

Olsen kicked off the contest with an unassisted goal with 12:40 on the clock in the first quarter. But the Tars answered back as Shelly teamed up with Wright with 10:11 on the clock to knot the score at one. The remainder of the first quarter fell dormant as both teams tried to find the back of the cage, but almost nine minutes went by without any scoring action.

Rollins found their spark as the first period wound down thanks to Ricci grabbing a feed from Cook with 1:22 left to put the Tars in the lead 2-1. Eight seconds later, Cohen grabbed a ground ball off of the faceoff and fed the ball to Shelly to bump the Tars up to a 3-1 lead with 1:14 remaining in the period.

With the seconds quickly ticking off the clock, Ricci ripped an unassisted goal past McShea with 27 seconds to go to pull Rollins ahead 4-1, and Magid and Cook teamed up 20 seconds later to put the Tars at a 5-1 advantage entering into the second quarter.

Schmit kicked off the second period with a goal at 13:42 to give Rollins a five goal lead, and both teams once again fell into stagnant, scoreless play until late in the period. With 1:16 remaining before the half, Lutes ripped an unassisted goal past O’Brien to close the deficit to four, but Magid once again notched a goal in the final seconds to put Rollins ahead 7-2 at the break.

The Tars entered into the third quarter with a quick goal from Ricci to give them their largest lead of the contest with a score of 8-2. But two goals from Lutes throughout the remainder of the third period meant Rollins only led by four entering into the final quarter of the contest.

Lunnen teamed up with Ricci to score the first goal of the fourth period, putting Rollins ahead 9-5, but the Falcons slowly whittled away at the five goal deficit as Rose, Lutes and Olsen found the back of the net to put the score at 9-7 with 2:46 remaining.

The Tars and Falcons were in an all out battle for the ball in the final minutes of play, but Pfeiffer was able to capitalize on a late possession, peppering the Rollins defense with shots. Rose was able to sneak one past O’Brien to close the gap with 16 seconds on the clock, but Rollins won the ensuing faceoff to hold possession and notch their second-straight victory.

The Tars dominated in faceoffs, winning 15-of-21 as Schmit went 10-for-13, and Magid won 5-of-8. Schmit led the game with seven ground balls, while Cohen and Nick Scannapieco each grabbed five.

Defensively, the Tars were on top as they shut down 3-of-5 man up opportunities, and caused 12 turnovers with long stick midfielder Andrew Vossler causing three. The Tars led the game in ground balls 37-24, but did not fare so well on the clear as they found success on 18-of-25 in comparison to PU’s 23-for-25 final.